Discover Boating invites Indiana Pacers on fishing trip

Posted on May 20th, 2014

Could fishing really help pro basketball players with their game?

After a recent story suggested that a fishing trip improved Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert’s game against the Washington Wizards in the second game of their NBA playoff series, Discover Boating invited the entire Indiana Pacers team fishing via Twitter.

Within hours of the tweet that Discover Boating sent, Scott Agness, beat reporter for Pacer.com, shared the offer on his Twitter account.

“Apparently the peace and quiet of a fishing trip can do all sorts of wonders for the psyche,” the article stated.

It went on to quote Hibbert: “Yesterday after practice, [Paul George] invited me out on his boat and we fished for about two hours and just relaxed and didn’t talk about basketball. We just talked about life and trying to catch some bass. He reached out and got my mind off things. Hopefully it’s something I can build on, and he’s a great teammate, so I really do appreciate him reaching out because he didn’t have to.”

The Bleacher Report article has been syndicated on at least eight other sites, including NBA Digest and Chat Sports.

As the Bleacher Report pointed out, all of the Pacers obviously can’t fit into George’s boat.

“And that’s where Discover Boating steps in,” the article says. “If the Pacers take it up on this offer — and if it works — we could see a serious increase in fishing interest among NBA players. You might be able to hang out at your local rod-and-reel store if you want to meet a struggling star from the Association.”

Although the Pacers haven’t taken Discover Boating up on the offer yet, the national boating initiative says this is “a great example of utilizing social media to create media buzz in a timely manner around the boating lifestyle and its benefits.”

Online coverage and Twitter reach garnered a total of more than 31.5 million impressions.